Gaming's Ambitious Crossover - D&D and Magic Back Together Again

We here at Apotheosis Studios deeply love anything new to the world of Dungeons and Dragons. So it's a point of high excitement for us all, and for me personally, when it seems like the most ambitious crossover in gaming history is finally coming – and coming over 25 years late if you ask me!

Magic: the Gathering is the other great title published by Wizards of the Coast. The first trading card game was dreamt up by game designer Richard Garfield when he was bored in line at a D&D convention. The high fantasy flavour was done to mirror those themes, and has gone on to be the consistent flavour in the card game as a whole.

With both games being absolute titans in their respective fields, we've seen them start to intersect in the past few years. Magic's locations and characters have started appearing in D&D world books in both Plane Shifts, as well as, Guildmaster's Guide and Mythic Odyssey. This is the first time D&D has appeared in Magic cards.

There haven't been many cards shown, but I'll talk about them all here from the perspective of both an avid Dungeons and Dragons and Magic player.

Stacking the Deck

The 9th level Enchantment Power Word Kill has made it as a card very similar to Doom Blade. With the Standard rotation coming soon, I can very much see Power Word Kill replacing Eliminate in the decks that like to consistently kill things.

Portable Hole, Power word kill, and prosperous inkeeper magic cards

The classic Magic Item, Portable hole, has made it as a deceptively powerful O-Ring like Artifact. While this will be great in Standard and Historic to bust up the Glass Caskets and Seal Aways that have taken your things. I can even think of this being effective in older formats, reset with cards like Flickerwisp to take cards like Aether Vial or Noble Hierarch.

Prosperous Inkeeper is the first creature printed with the iconic D&D race. I'm certain this will be the first of many, and Green or White is the logical colour for these kind, small folk. An effect similar to Soul Warden is a nice and caring thing you'd expect.

Vorpal Sword - all Versions

The Sword which can cut off an enemies' head on a natural 20 is here giving a cheap but relevant buff to an aggressive Black deck, but the possibility to one-shot your opponent is funny. Not something I imagine seeing much competitive play, but a fun card nevertheless. The alternate artworks for it look wondrous too.

The evil dragon god has made her way from Challenge 30 stat block to a Legendary card. Incredibly fun and powerful, being able to essentially draw the 5 best dragons in your deck, while making a 7/7 that flies is an immense power play. Outside the Commander format, I'm unsure if Tiamat does much. The cost to play her is so steep, and the restriction of needing 5, different named dragons is incredibly restricting. In Commander however, she's excellent alongside The Ur-Dragon, and her alternate artwork is something to truly lust after.

Tiamat Cards - All Versions

The Realms of Adventure

The one thing that ties Magic and D&D together is the realms of adventure they both happen in. The lands that make up the settings campaigns happen in is the same as the land cards that work as the resource for your plays. The lands in this set feature narration that I could hear the best Game Masters retelling to their players. Such a fun inclusion.

Now we want to hear from you. Are you excited to see classic Dungeons and Dragons in your Magic cards? What other D&D tropes do you hope have made it into the TCG? We're going to look closely as more of these cards are released. Until then let us know your thoughts in our discord server or in the comments below.

Basic lands have the dm’s narration

Adam Ray contributes much for adventurers here on Apotheosis Studios. As co-founder of fantasticuniverses.com, he writes about card gaming and PC gaming to a corner of the internet he carved out himself. On Youtube, he can be found game mastering for No Ordinary Heroes, or editing the antics on The Hostile Atmosphere. Follow his Twitter @IzzetTinkerer.